aliens.gov immigration – A new White House webpage, aliens.gov, uses “declassified” visuals and X-Files-style theatrics to frame immigration enforcement as a threat posed by “aliens”—a term with legal roots in the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts. Critics say the memefied, dehumanizing wo
For anyone expecting extraterrestrials, the page is almost a bait-and-switch.
On aliens.gov. a new White House website. the message “THEY WALK AMONG US” glows in luminous green against a dark. starry background. Above it, the word “DECLASSIFIED” sits like a promise of hidden truth. Then the site leans hard into TV mythology. Its opening credits roll with the sound of The X-Files—complete with lines that unfurl one letter at a time.
“they do not belong here…Countless presidents, congressmen, and senior officials knew exactly what was happening. Instead of protecting American citizens, they chose to cover it up,” the site declares.
But the page isn’t about UFOs or alien encounters. It is built around immigration enforcement—and around a deliberately provocative framing of immigrants. “These ‘Aliens’ are the millions of ILLEGALS…Deport them all,” the site says. “THEY WEREN’T LITTLE GREEN MEN.”
The word “aliens” has a long history in U.S. law. One of its earliest appearances is tied to the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts. which authorized the president to arrest. imprison and detain “aliens. ” meaning noncitizens. during wartime. The laws also restricted freedom of expression for citizens. The National Archives has described the measures as driven by concern that noncitizens might sympathize with the French if the United States went to war.
California struck the term from its state code in 2021, calling the language “outdated and derogatory.”
On aliens.gov, the word becomes something else: a hook that fuses conspiracy-style entertainment with anti-immigrant politics. Ernesto Castañeda. director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University. said the wordplay feeds a desire for “hidden knowledge” while landing on immigrants as targets.
“Saying [‘alien’] instills fear,” Castañeda said. He added that comparing noncitizens to extraterrestrials is “dehumanizing.”
He also pointed to how rhetoric can travel—especially when it’s wrapped in jokes or spectacle. “for a few people, it may be another license to act violently against people that they may think are aliens, undocumented. They may be another incitement to hate crimes and to profiling people.”
The site’s language leans into that unsettling ambiguity. In one section, it refers to “aliens” with the pronoun “it.” “If you’ve witnessed an Alien abduction, do not be alarmed,” the website says. “We will take care of it… and return it safely to its place of origin.”
Many will dismiss the framing as tasteless theater. Castañeda did not. He argued that even those “bad taste” elements can function like permission slips for people looking for a reason to harm others.
Shannon McGregor, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies media and social media in political processes, said the page fits a broader pattern in the Trump administration’s communication style: making policy feel like a joke.
The government’s governing and messaging approach, McGregor said, is “wrapped up in ‘everything’s a joke, nothing matters,’ as an excuse for pushing the envelope over and over.” She described the page as combining “extraterrestrial” language with what she called “white supremacist ideas.”
What makes aliens.gov different, McGregor said, is not only its tone but its placement. It is propaganda, posted on an official government website.
“It may be just to generate attention…away from the things that are really unpopular and harming President Trump and the Republican Party’s credibility right now,” McGregor said, pointing to high gas prices and the war with Iran.
The page also uses the language of invasion and saviors. It warns of an “invasion” of “aliens” and says “President Trump was the first to call out the real danger Aliens pose to every American family. every community. and the future of our nation.” McGregor said that. in her view. the page carries authoritarian undertones: the idea that there is one person who can fix it. and that “the one savior…is Trump himself.”.
Behind the dramatics, the site leans on numbers—displayed in a way that can be hard to interpret. It lists over three million “ENCOUNTERS” in a dramatic display, but it is unclear what the number includes.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement counts detentions and arrests as “encounters.” But ICE also uses the term for other types of interactions—situations in which the agency is considering whether to enforce immigration law against a person. according to the Deportation Data Project. a group of researchers and attorneys that requests and puts out immigration enforcement datasets from U.S. government records.
The Deportation Data Project has said there were up to about one million such ICE encounters from January 2025 to March 2026, based on data obtained from public records requests.
It’s also possible the three million figure includes encounters involving Customs and Border Protection officers. which also enforce immigration laws. CBP’s data. as NPR was able to access records. shows the agency totaled about 200. 000 encounters in each of two periods: from Jan 2025 to May 2025 and from Oct 2025 until Apr 2026.
The site’s other figures have similar issues of clarity. An “alien arrests” map on the website displays the number of arrests for thousands of localities starting from Jan 21. 2025 through now. totaling 200. 000 across the country and citing ICE as the source. But the Deportation Data Project tabulated over 300,000 arrests from ICE data covering a shorter time frame.
In a statement, an unnamed White House spokesperson said, “The aliens.gov website pulls data directly from DHS arrest reports to communicate just how many illegal aliens are present in our country, and highlight the Trump Administration’s efforts to remove them.”
Even the construction of the site has come under scrutiny. There are signs that at least part of the webpage may have been created using AI tools. The website’s source code includes comments such as “← this is your spacing between lines” and “add some breathing room. ” suggesting at least part of the code might have been generated with artificial intelligence tools. When such tools are used to assist with coding, the comments can be generous with explanation.
The administration has embraced AI-generated media in social media posts and has encouraged AI use in government, but the details of how it has been implemented have been scant. The White House did not respond to questions about why it created the website or about its use of AI.
McGregor said the rushed look could matter. “It may be just to generate attention…away from the things that are really unpopular and harming President Trump and the Republican Party’s credibility right now,” she said, tying the page to the political pressures of the moment.
For those who clicked expecting a dossier on extraterrestrials. aliens.gov delivers a different kind of message—one that treats immigration enforcement as a dramatic spectacle. swaps citizenship and humanity for a loaded term with centuries-old legal roots. and presents enforcement statistics in a way critics say leaves too much room for confusion and fear.
aliens.gov White House immigration enforcement DHS ICE encounters deportation data project X-Files declassified Alien and Sedition Acts California outdated and derogatory AI in government
So it’s basically alien movies now? Cool.
I don’t get why they need the whole X-Files thing. Like are we in a sci-fi show or is this immigration? They’re making people sound like villains for clicks.
Wait so “aliens.gov” is from the White House? I saw someone say it was like a leaked UFO page but it’s just immigration…? Either way the green letters are kinda creepy. Also the 1798 thing means they can just call anybody an alien right? Seems like a loophole.
Declassified my butt. Every time they say declassified it’s usually not really anything. They should be focusing on actual crimes not this “they walk among us” propaganda nonsense. And calling immigrants “illegals” like that is just dehumanizing. Next they’ll have opening credits for deportations like that’s normal.